GENERAL BOOTH’S LIFE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 27 December 1912, Page 5

GENERAL BOOTH’S LIFE.

HOW THE “ARMY” STARTED’.

(Independent Cable Service.) , ; *u n a London, December 20. The “Life of General booth” has been published, and it provides most .interesting reading. . It is full of anecdote and delightful experience. The first critical decision that the famous religionist had >£o make was to acknowledge an act of deception. In a boyish trading deal he .managed to make a profit out of |jis companions while leading them to suppose that he was acting in a spirit, 'of fellowship. They presented him with a silver pencil-case as a testimonial of -their gratitude but after a day’s soul-sear Ching he rushed to them, returned; the pencil-case, and confessed. ‘ He joined the Methodist New- Connexion in London, and the scene , of his earliest evangelistic labours whs in a tent. That house of prayer blew down, and then he preached in a dancing room, and afterwards in a theatre.

After six years of hard work he was holding his Sunday night meetings in a small covered alley adjoining a drinking saloon and a tumble-down penny theatre. The week-night evangelists who prayed and sang with him wished to convert the mission into a regular church. Booth said: ‘ ‘There are plenty of churches. We want to make an army.” _ - That was the genesis of the Salvation Army.